Panasonic new HC-X920

R0cky wrote on 2/27/2013, 4:59 PM

AVCHD is decoded by vegas. It opens up nicely with the surround channels correctly identified.

rocky

set wrote on 2/27/2013, 5:37 PM

60p (and 50p) is frame rate shooting only speed, so it will be useful when you need to make slow motion of the shot, up to 50%. The motion will still good.

MTuggy wrote on 2/27/2013, 5:49 PM

I have the earlier model - the TM 700, sibling of the HC-900. My only issue has been very weak white balance when set on AUTO. In snow - it has a gross blue-green hue - I'm not the only one - you can see complaints on multiple sites on the web.

That being said - if you set it on manual WB, you are just fine. The quality of color and video clarity is superb. If they could just fix the WB feature, it would be a perfect small yet powerful camera. The manual focus ring is great.

Mike

mx1497 wrote on 2/27/2013, 6:08 PM

I briefly owned the previous 900 version. It was a really nice camcorder with a great touchscreen and fantastic 3MOS image quality...but the fan noise was so bad I had to return it.

I don't know if the fan noise is universal or for particular batches, but I would look into if Panasonic addressed that. Otherwise, I would have kept it.

rs170a wrote on 2/27/2013, 7:46 PM

but the fan noise was so bad I had to return it.

Tell everyone it's a Red camera. They have the nickname "hairdryer" because the fan is so darn loud. Sound guys can't stand working with the camera :(

Mike

PeterDuke wrote on 2/27/2013, 8:38 PM

Nobody has explicitly addressed Jerry's main question about the audio yet! Any comments?

While Vegas may not recognize a raw ACC stream, just as it doesn't recognize a raw AC3 stream, does it recognize ACC when imbedded in an AVCHD stream, just as it does for AC3?

EDIT

Further question: if the answer is "yes", should the ACC audio be rendered as an AC3 stream in Vegas if you intend to make a Blu-ray disc?

Jerry K wrote on 2/28/2013, 9:57 AM

For those of you shooting with camcorders that record ACC audio and edit with sony Vegas how are you getting the audio to work in Sony Vegas?

I had some HD clips a few months ago with ACC audio and the audio would not work in Vegas, I had to bring the clips into VLC convert the audio for it to play in Vegas. Is any one else have this problem and if so what is your work around?

Jerry K

R0cky wrote on 2/28/2013, 4:37 PM

As I posted above, it DOES recognize the audio. Just drag the AVCHD file onto the timeline in a surround project and it opens up just fine.

rocky

set wrote on 2/28/2013, 6:20 PM

Audio should be readable as AVCHD is standard codec, I remember once, there's a notice of Sony Vegas mentioning Panasonic avchd, and found in 8.0b:
http://dspcdn.sonycreativesoftware.com/releasenotes/vegaspro81_x64_readme.htm
Notable fixes/changes in version 8.0b
Added support for reading 1920x1080 AVCHD video. 1920x1080 AVCHD files created by Panasonic camcorders are not currently supported.

Add : Jerry, Can you post your short hc-x920 avchd media sample, perhaps via dropbox, to test by others here? Very curious...

Ron Windeyer wrote on 2/28/2013, 8:31 PM

I'm a little confused about all this. I looked up the specs of the HC-X920 - it seems to be an incremental upgrade of the TM900, which I have and love.

Shooting modes (from specs) you can shoot in AVCHD (which I do) at various quality levels, right up to 1920*1080 @ 50 or 60 P. Vegas has no problem whatever with AVCHD - I edit the stuff all the time. Audio is AVCHD, in 5.1 Dolby with an additional stereo downmixed stream.

You can also shoot in iframe mode - I guess that's for folk with Macs, and who want to use imovie or maybe another mac package. Audio in this mode is AAC stereo (not ACC).

It is true that you can't put 50P or 60P video on a disk, but you can view it on a PS3. I do this and it's awesome. Having said that, I rendered some 50P video out to 50i recently, and I'm battling to see any difference. I guess with slow motion or high speed action you would really see a difference.

PeterDuke wrote on 2/28/2013, 11:28 PM

Yes, I looked up the specs. In normal AVCHD mode, the audio is Dolby Digital (AC3) stereo or 5.1.

In iFrame MP4 mode, the video is 960x540 progressive, 25 or 30 fps (no interframe compression). The audio is AAC stereo.

PeterDuke wrote on 3/1/2013, 12:11 AM

"I rendered some 50P video out to 50i recently, and I'm battling to see any difference. I guess with slow motion or high speed action you would really see a difference."

50i is more likely to show line bobbing with sharp horizontal lines. In these cases, you would have to apply a small amount of verical blur before conversion from p to i.

Effects applied to p are likely to show less artifacts than when applied to i. If you intend to apply effects and deliver in i, then shoot in p. If no effects, shoot in i.

Jerry K wrote on 3/1/2013, 4:16 AM

Thanks Ron Windeyer for noticing my error, yes it is AAC stereo audio. The AAC audio I'm dealing with is from a internal HD card recorder I have installed in my computer for recording HD video from my cable box using RCA component and audio cables. Here's a link to a short clip.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2isxgvhlxdg003a/2013_2_2_16_53_22.TS?m

Here's a link to the card I have installed that works really good for recording HD programming from my HD cable box.

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_colossus.html

Jerry K

set wrote on 3/1/2013, 5:17 AM

Just download your recording sample... so, to make clear of this thread first, the problem is not from camera, but video file recorded with Hauppauge Colossus Recorder ?

Using MediaInfo tools (http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en) :
MPEG-TS - bitrate 27.0 Mbps
Video Stream : AVC (High@L4.0) (Cabac / 2 Ref Frames)
Audio Stream : 48.0 kHz, 2 channels, AAC (ADTS) (Version 2) (LC)

For Comparison, take one random downloadable MP4 video from Vimeo site: https://vimeo.com/51430433
MPEG-4 (Base Media / Version 2)
Video Stream : AVC (NTSC) (Main@L5.1) (CABAC / 3 Ref Frames)
Audio Stream : 48.0 kHz, 2 channels, AAC (LC)

Could be the AAC version is unreadable, different.
Thankfully you give link of the card you use, so we can check user manual too. Have you tried recording with other bundled software, Arcsoft ShowBiz? M2TS and MP4 could be more friendly format to Vegas..., from what I read...

Jerry K wrote on 3/1/2013, 6:42 AM

I tried all the settings in Arcsoft ShowBiz software. From everything I read if I record using component input the audio will be AAC. If I record using the HDMI input I will get AC3 audio. The problem is HDMI with my cable Box is copyright protection. I used VLC to convert the .TS file audio to AC3 and VLC did a good job but I wasn't able to batch convert so converting was a pain in the ass.

Jerry K

set wrote on 3/1/2013, 7:44 AM

Looks like you need to do some scripting / command line for VLC:
http://wiki.videolan.org/How_to_Batch_Encode

just tried with AVIDEMUX also, and doing classic DOS .bat execute can be done too:
http://www.avidemux.org/smf/index.php?topic=8589.0

I never tried all of these, just pointing out...

Jerry K wrote on 3/1/2013, 7:59 AM

Thanks setiawan3d I will give it a try next time I transfer footage off my cable box.

Jerry K

Jerry K wrote on 3/2/2013, 6:59 AM

The Panasonic camcorder AAC audio is different from the Arcsoft ShowBiz software AAC audio and the AAC audio from the camcorder works with out a problem in Sony Vegas Pro. is that correct?

Jerry K

set wrote on 3/2/2013, 8:32 AM

Theoretically yes... - Try use Mediainfo to check the file (for hc-x920 file).

for comparison to Sony NEX-VG20:

BDAV
Video Stream : 15.5 Mbps AVC (High@L4.0) (Cabac / 2 Ref Frames)
Audio Stream : 256 Kbps, 48.0 kHz, 16 bits, 2 channels, AC-3
(I'm not using the highest setting, keep at 17 Mbps)

hmm, Text Stream? : PGS